Death of Capt. Ferrer, the Captain of the Amistad

Scores of Mende people in Sierra Leone were seized by Portuguese enslavers in 1839 and shipped to Cuba to be sold into bondage. Claimed at auction by Spanish planters Pedro Montez and José Ruiz, fifty-three of the Africans were chained and taken aboard the schooner Amistad for transport to a sugar plantation. Several days into the voyage, a captive known as Cinqué (Sengbe-Pieh in Mende) managed to free himself and liberate the others. After killing the Amistad’s captain and cook and restraining Montez and Ruiz, the Africans took control of the vessel with the goal of returning to their homeland.